Thomas Huxley Quotes


The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Thomas Huxley Evidence 360
The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear. Thomas Huxley Changes 109
The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect. Thomas Huxley Peace 97
Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah. Thomas Huxley Science 91
No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man. Thomas Huxley Benefit 89
The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental. Thomas Huxley Being 87
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing. Thomas Huxley Nature 86
There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. Thomas Huxley Benefit 86
Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion! Thomas Huxley Religion 82
There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high. Thomas Huxley Politics 82
Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact. Thomas Huxley Science 81
Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth. Thomas Huxley Science 80
The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses. Thomas Huxley Acknowledge 79
Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother. Thomas Huxley Equality 79
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. Thomas Huxley Science 78
The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false. Thomas Huxley Ask 75
In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. Thomas Huxley Art 75
The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority. Thomas Huxley Appeal 75
The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability. Thomas Huxley Imagination 74
Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. Thomas Huxley Cleverness 72
It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy. Thomas Huxley Sad 71
The Bible has been the Magna Carta of the poor and of the oppressed. Thomas Huxley Bible 71
Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. Thomas Huxley Grandeur 71
The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another thing to open the box. Thomas Huxley Wisdom 69
Books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science. Thomas Huxley Science 68
Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely. Thomas Huxley Money 67
The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. Thomas Huxley Science 65
Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third. Thomas Huxley Another 65
I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young. Thomas Huxley History 63
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. Thomas Huxley Faith 63
The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. Thomas Huxley Nature 62
I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy. Thomas Huxley Binds 61
I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. Thomas Huxley Power 61
The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me. Thomas Huxley Anyone 61
The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals. Thomas Huxley Power 60
Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. Thomas Huxley Science 57
The child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan, and section of a pint pot has had an admirable training in accuracy of eye and hand. Thomas Huxley Accuracy 57
In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact. Thomas Huxley Work 57
If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker. Thomas Huxley Nature 57
It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization upon the natural organization of the body. Thomas Huxley Education 54
The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins. Thomas Huxley best 52
No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life. Thomas Huxley Science 52
Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth. Thomas Huxley Science 50
Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth. Thomas Huxley Time 46
Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit. Thomas Huxley Nature 42
My experience of the world is that things left to themselves don't get right. Thomas Huxley Experience 42
Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing. Thomas Huxley Science 41
Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense. Thomas Huxley Science 39
Freedom and order are not incompatible... truth is strength... free discussion is the very life of truth. Thomas Huxley Discussion 39
My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. Thomas Huxley Business 38

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Thomas Huxley Quotes

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